LOUISE BROOKS, PROUD STAR OF SILENT SCREEN, DEAT AT 78

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems.
Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

Louise Brooks, the silent movie actress from small-town Kansas whose helmet of bobbed brunet hair became her trademark and a symbol of the disdainful flapper of the 1920's, died of a heart attack Thursday at her home in Rochester. She was 78 years old and for nearly 30 years had lived in retirement in a small one-bedroom apartment, sick, poor, proud and alone.

Discovered in a Broadway chorus line as a teen-ager in George White's ''Scandals'' in 1924, she went from modeling semi-nude for a theatrical photographer to posing for a classic head shot by Edward Steichen.

She moved on to the movies, making 24 films in a career that began in 1925 and ended in 1938, at the age of 32. Broke but independent, she worked as a $40-a-week salesclerk at Saks Fifth Avenue for two years after World War II.

Two Early Masterpieces

Miss Brooks's films included two early masterpieces made by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the German director, in 1929 - ''Pandora's Box,'' in which she played the amoral temptress Lulu, and ''Diary of a Lost Girl,'' where she was cast in the role of a middle-class girl of 16 who is seduced. The 21-year-old American dancer from Cherryvale, Kan., was chosen to play Lulu in Berlin over several German actresses, including Marlene Dietrich.

She had left Hollywood in 1928 after B. P. Schulberg, the Paramount executive, had turned down her request for a raise. Among her Hollywood films were ''American Venus'' (1926), ''The Show-Off'' (1926), ''Evening Clothes'' (1927), ''Rolled Stockings'' (1927) and ''A Girl in Every Port'' (1928). When she returned from Germany, her disputes with the Hollywood executives continued and she appeared only in minor roles - in ''God's Gift to Women'' (1931) and ''The Public Enemy'' (1931), among others. Her last film was ''Overland Stage Riders'' (1938), a John Wayne western.

A new generation discovered Miss Brooks when both Pabst films were shown and acclaimed in New York two years ago. She had gained renewed attention in 1979 after The New Yorker printed a profile by Kenneth Tynan titled ''The Girl in the Black Helmet.'' In recent years, Miss Brooks frequently wrote about movies, past and present, in the more serious film journals. Her memoir, ''Lulu in Hollywood,'' published in 1982 by Knopf, was acclaimed for its intelligence and style.

You are already subscribed to this email.

In an introduction by William Shawn for ''Lulu in Hollywood,'' the New Yorker editor wrote: ''It should not come as a surprise that a film actress can write, but, so narrow are our expectations, it does. We are even more surprised when it turns out that the actress is one of the great beauties of all time. And we are out and out astonished when we learn that many people think she possesses an erotic eloquence unmatched by that of any other woman ever to have appeared on the screen. It may well be that the number of beautiful, eloquently erotic film actresses who have been able to write is very, very small. But, whether it is small or large, in my judgment Louise Brooks must head the list.''

Miss Brooks settled in Rochester in 1956 at the urging of James Card, a fan and curator of the Eastman House museum. There she studied films, including seven of her own, and devoted herself to writing.

She was married for brief periods, first to Edward Sutherland, a director, and then to Deering Davis, a dancer. She told Mr. Tynan that she had never been in love, was supported at various times by several millionaires, but declined to marry them.

Miss Brooks has no known survivors.

A version of this obituary appears in print on August 10, 1985, on Page 1001029 of the National edition with the headline: LOUISE BROOKS, PROUD STAR OF SILENT SCREEN, DEAT AT 78. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe